by the El Reportero news services
Fidel Castro
The ailing Cuban leader, Fidel Castro, gave further hints on 17 December that he may not run for a seat in congress in January. If Fidel really decides not to run, he will be stepping down as Cuban leader.
What is clear now is that the transition of power from Fidel to his brother, Raúl, has been almost flawlessly managed by the ruling party. The first phase was Fidel’s surrendering of power.
The second phase is now underway and involves Raúl taking power. Raúl is now clearly in charge and setting the policy agenda. Fidel, not seen in public for the past 16 months, has already become just a figure-head.
Nicaragua told to free Nashville man
Court overturns his murder conviction Joy gave way to worry hours after the Eric Volz family heard the 28-year-old had been freed from a Nicaraguan prison but remained in the country, where radio broadcasters called for vigilante justice against the American accused of killing his former girlfriend.
A Nicaraguan appeals court on Monday overturned Volz’s conviction and 30-year prison sentence and ordered his release.
The Associated Press reported that Volz, of Nashville, had been freed from prison in the town of Granada, some 25 miles east of Managua, but the news service said his whereabouts were unknown.
By the end of the day, the Volz family was reeling again, worried about what would happen to him while his life remained in the hands of the Nicaraguan justice system. A family spokeswoman and an offi cial in Washington said Volz had not been released.
The trial court did not sign release papers for Volz, who is currently in a prison hospital, where he’s been for nearly two months, the e-mail said. The family is getting information from a lawyer in Nicaragua. (At press time, his freedom was in process).
In Colombia, hostage’s letter hits home
BOGOTA, Colombia – It was a godsend, the 12-page letter that Ingrid Betancourt sent her mother. It confi rmed that the best-known hostage in Colombia, one of hundreds, was alive, deep in a guerrilla encampment.
But the letter rang with such profound pain and despair that Betancourt’s mother, Yolanda Pulecio, has still not stopped crying. In meticulous prose, Betancourt told her mother that she was “tired, tired of suffering” and that she sometimes thinks death would be a “sweet option.”
“These almost six years of captivity have shown me that I’m not as resistant, nor as brave, nor as intelligent, nor as strong as I had thought,” Betancourt, a prominent French-Colombian politician, wrote. “I have fought many battles, I have tried to escape on several opportunities, I have tried to maintain hope, as one does keeping head above water. But mamita, I have been defeated.”
